General Election - 4th July 2024

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

Can we have your predictions please for the top 2 parties and seats.

I said yesterday it would be:

Labour 375
Tory 185

Looks a little pessimistic from today's numbers but tories always crawl out of the woodwork on the day.

PS 50p prize for nearest guess

 

[dave_blue12]

True to form

 

[feedmpenzaandhewillscore]

You'd think they would steer away from the subject of apprenticeships given how badly they failed with their 2015 reform programme and targets. This is the issue with the recent/current government for me, even if they did stumble across a sensible policy you just know that from bean to cup they'd fuck up the implementation. Their track record is one of unremitting incompetence. At least they used to be good at campaigning albeit at the expense of having any governmental skills whatsoever; but now they appear to be shit at absolutely everything. Actually that's not strictly true there's still some decent grifting going on. Given they've managed to cling onto that 'skill', you could be forgiven for thinking they were never really there for the betterment of the country in the first place.

The apprenticeship pathway is something that I very much advocate to look at when considering college, university etc. However the government’s track record on what they have achieved since 2010 leaves a lot to be desired, the apprenticeship levy has ended up barriers to businesses and when they utilise their levy it’s teaching middle management to suck eggs rather than getting young people into careers.

Also the current pass rate for apprenticeships is 56 percent, there needs to be an understanding of why this is happening and why it’s not really providing value for money to the tax payer and the economy as a whole.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

who decides what a "Mickey Mouse" degree is? What stops someone who wants to go to Uni rather than do an apprenticeship applying for another course - there is no cap on the numbers of students.

There are no savings to be made this is another distraction "policy" which will be jettisoned post election

I’d start by abolishing PPE courses at all universities.

 

[metalblue]

True to form

That’s a 2019 article.

 

[threespires]

The apprenticeship pathway is something that I very much advocate to look at when considering college, university etc. However the government’s track record on what they have achieved since 2010 leaves a lot to be desired, the apprenticeship levy has ended up barriers to businesses and when they utilise their levy it’s teaching middle management to suck eggs rather than getting young people into careers.

Also the current pass rate for apprenticeships is 56 percent, there needs to be an understanding of why this is happening and why it’s not really providing value for money to the tax payer and the economy as a whole.

Spot on. Even when the intention is good which some of it no doubt has been, they implement abysmally. It's not an easy issue there's a lot of moving parts which is why you need serious people in it for the long haul not sloganeering fly by nights.

 

[threespires]

I’d start by abolishing PPE courses at all universities.

Think of all the bullets we'd have dodged!

 

[Johnny Mars Bar]

On a more serious note, these figures are wild. It’s not just the Labour/Con figures but the Greens.

’This morning's YouGov for people under 50 only:

Labour 59%
Greens 12%
Cons 8%
Reform 8%
LD 6%
That's the worst result amongst this age group I've see yet. Equal third with Reform.’ @SamFreedman

Fucking hell that's wild.

 

[BrianW]

Let's hope the under-50s can be arsed to vote.

It's no use saying who you support and then not bothering to vote. Still tons of time to apply for a postal vote if you have no 'valid' ID.

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

Can we have your predictions please for the top 2 parties and seats.

I said yesterday it would be:

Labour 375
Tory 185

Looks a little pessimistic from today's numbers but tories always crawl out of the woodwork on the day.

PS 50p prize for nearest guess

I think they’ll do a little worse than that

Labour 430
Tories 135

Disclaimer: I didn’t get this from the FT, I was surprised to see their model closely resembled my thinking on it.

I think Tories sub 150 is a good result. Tories sub 110 would exceed expectations. Tories sub 80 and I’ll get out an extra bottle of champagne.

 

[remember arthur mann]

Just listening to all the con merchant Conservative politicians, absolutely clueless.
" If Labour were in power, they'd do this, do that, do the other". Ffs ! They've done fook all apart from fook the country up.

Kinnell ! The beeb have just pulled an interview with Conservative politician Michael Tomlinson after he's just been shown his arse by Ben Thompson.

 

[feedmpenzaandhewillscore]

Spot on. Even when the intention is good which some of it no doubt has been, they implement abysmally. It's not an easy issue there's a lot of moving parts which is why you need serious people in it for the long haul not sloganeering fly by nights.

One thing Sunak has done right this year is getting rid of the 5 percent co-investment for employers hiring anyone under the age of 21. However it should never have been there in the first place and feels like the apprenticeship programme is another thing the government has tried to privatise by getting big business to foot the bill.

As for universities they all need to look at how they extend their degree apprenticeship offerings which will provide the bridge for young people to get into a career whilst obtaining a degree at the same time. There’s an opportunity for them here if the government want to get rid of degrees that don’t deliver a pathway to a career.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Think of all the bullets we'd have dodged!

They'd have found another course - rug making, history of art, zoology, oh and law - and they'd still turn up like bad pennies at Westminster screwing the tax payer..

 

[BobKowalski]

I think they’ll do a little worse than that

Labour 430
Tories 135

Disclaimer: I didn’t get this from the FT, I was surprised to see their model closely resembled my thinking on it.

I think Tories sub 150 is a good result. Tories sub 110 would exceed expectations. Tories sub 80 and I’ll get out an extra bottle of champagne.

This is where I would pitch it as well. Don’t see them coming in below 100.

 

[bluethrunthru]

won't bother working out the weekly equivalent save to say it will be the slim end of fuck all

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

I agree with the sentiment however would not want a Labour Govt directly meddling in the BBC and its management appointments. Better thing to do would be the Govt to just blank them. Just favour making announcements and giving interviews to ITN, C4News and SKY News and just make BBC News irrelevant.

Labour have already stated that they will replace any Tory tied appointments and bring in impartial personnel

 

[Johnny Mars Bar]

If you're wanting to make a point that the creative industries aren't a worthwhile career path when considering university options, I'm not sure calling them "Micky Mouse" degrees is the best phrase.

Disney is a 200 BILLION dollar company that employs 250,000 people, started by a bloke who started drawing a cartoon mouse.

Micky Mouse, eh. Didn't too to bad for himself.

 

[hilts]

Even for Tories this is an impressively shameless level of pandering to the pensioner vote at the expense of the young. I suspect shortly we'll be informed that £1000 will be directly taken out of the accounts of everyone under 45 and given straight to your nearest retiree. Maybe next they'll all be given a free car.

Please god don't give pensioners free cars.

 

[Eebo]

I agree with the sentiment however would not want a Labour Govt directly meddling in the BBC and its management appointments. Better thing to do would be the Govt to just blank them. Just favour making announcements and giving interviews to ITN, C4News and SKY News and just make BBC News irrelevant

I am not suggesting for one minute that they put in Labour Stooges, just get rid of the malign politically influenced appointments made by the Tories who are impacting the BBC credibility and reputation for even-handedness.

Why else does QT always have some Tuton Street think tanker on instead of Green or Libs?

Why are Kuensberg and Bruce in jobs still

And why is an the unelected Farage and his Reform Company getting so much more airtime than he deserves?

Count Binface has won as many elections as Farage but he doesn't get this support and exposure.

They have no MP's who have been elected as Reform, and fewer Councillors than several local Independent groupings. Its all part of the march to the right and fascism promoted by those faceless Tories on the BBC board

 

[dave_blue12]

That’s a 2019 article.

Yeah thanks. I realised just after I posted.

Though my guess is the leopards won’t have changed their spots.